When the Wounds Refuse to Heal
by JeromeSankara
Summary: Just when things were coming together for Zero, when he moved in with Kaname, happily in love with each other and preparing to start their new life together, a single letter in the mail changed all of that forever. Now being deployed out by the Hunter's Association in a war against the intelligent breed of Level E, will Zero return fully intact? ZxK


**"Get down!"**

The blast that followed rocketed through the beaten terrain, shaking it to its core. Shrapnel flew, scattering across the earth without a care to where it finally landed... And silence crept over the battle zone once again. But slowly, movement was starting to arise once more. Sluggish uniformed officers began to pull themselves up from the mud, the darkness of night clotting their senses but all of them knew that it was best not to complain... The night was when their subjects were in motion.

It was when they preyed upon their own bodies, using the dark as a veil over their bodies.

The eyes glowed faintly in the darkness as each of their soldiers started to pull themselves up to their feet, struggling to compose themselves from a long night of constant ducking and diving for cover. The enemies were getting stronger... They were claiming more weapons, starting to figure out just how to put them together in a slightly stable manner.

Off in the distance, another boom echoed. This time, though, silence didn't echo from it... In the distance was the low noise that chilled every man to their bones, the wail of death they called it. Where one of their troops had been hit... But there were so few of them, they couldn't afford to lose any more. They were losing... It was a slow, painful death to them, but they were some of the last resistance left. The last survivors to keep the outbreak from expanding to the unknowing world...

But there were just too many of them. And they were all beginning to close in... He could hear the wail of death rising and bubbling up and flames were beginning to lick the skies. The explosion had caught a camp on fire... The ground that they had gained over the last month had quickly been lost. And it seemed to be the thought running through every soldier's head here that they would soon be losing a lot more than ground...

The stuffy humid air was pulled deep within one of the soldier's lungs, the air tainted with the scents that had grown familiar to the man... Blood, dirt, gun powder, death. They all left their stench in the once pure air, but that had been years ago... The hardened soldier stared out across the broken land in front of him almost defiantly, as if begging for someone to try to shoot him, daring them to land another bomb...

His soldiers were dying... They weren't to the caliber that they had been when this war had started. Even the newest recruits, ones that had no idea what hell they were getting themselves into, were losing their will, if not their strength and even their lives. It was going to take another wave of recruits again... To try to desperately train hunters and soldiers... It had grown to the point that they skipped hunting and just gave a gun to whoever could manage to shoot straight and would stay on their side.

But they would die quicker than anyone else, not surprisingly... The death count was growing, and it wasn't always because of wounds. Because whoever would be trapped behind enemy lines not only was dead to them but... became one of the enemy. But just who was the enemy that was destroying the hunters?

Level E's...

The Level E's were thriving more than ever before. And now they had been mutating themselves... Now they no longer needed the venom of a pureblood's bite to turn them. With the disgusting poison that coated their fangs, one single plunge into the neck of an unsuspecting victim tainted them... They not only had the strength of the Level E, the insane thirst or blood, and now the intelligence to think of much more dangerous ways to get what they wanted...

**"Fuck..."** the man muttered as he stared at the bright flames that licked up into the night sky. They were going to close in soon... And as the man turned and looked to his troops as they struggled to pull themselves up, he knew that there was no way they could fight against them. Ammo was getting low, their wills were cracking under the pressure, and judging by the thick scent of blood, there were injuries...

A bullet whizzed past his head, capturing a few snowy white hairs that stuck out in soft tufts just faintly beneath the army helmet. The amethyst eyes darted back to follow the path of the bullet, his heart jumping into his throat for a moment before finding that there was no one behind him to hit any longer. Ah damn it... They probably scattered... Scattered like cockroaches when the light was turned on. But it wasn't their fault, they weren't ready... And it nearly drove pain into his hardened heart to know that they were putting nearly innocent lives at risk for a losing cause...

But lives were going to be lost. This was war. This wasn't a playdate with three year olds. People were going to die...

And it sure as hell wasn't going to be him. Not today.

The scent of the Level E's suddenly rushed up to meet the man, snapping him back to reality. This wasn't the time to drift off and think about what the hell he had gotten himself into. They needed to get moving. Now. He could already feel the presence of his enemy closing in and could feel the feet start to crunch into the debris that was scattered across the land, but using the darkness to shadow themselves... It would be the perfect attack...

**"Fall back!"** a loud cry came from his lips, his only ability to command his troops. They had no fancy signals any longer or any way to spread the word... Hell, he wasn't even supposed to be on the front lines. But with the lack of men, they needed every able bodied man ready to fight... even though the strongest of hunters had already been claimed.

Kaito was one of the first to go. He went in on the first wave in a suicidal mission that proved exactly that. But he died fighting to the very end...

Other great hunters, the best of the best, had fallen. From the last that he had heard, him, Yagari and Kaien were the only true hunters left. And who knows how long his sensei was going to survive... With only one eye and a shot gun, it was a race against time... After all, when was he going to die.

Well if he didn't get his ass out of here, soon.

The man immediately darted back, scanning his amethyst eyes across each of the craters that the bombs from before had left behind, leaving faint shelter to them. Men were scattered in the holes but they weren't moving... Dead. More of his platoon had died, but there were still some coming back... Men were helping men drag each other out of the holes, the able bodied running towards the camp that was positioned painfully far away. It was going to be a mad dash to try to save their own skins, one that not all men were going to complete...

And once they're there, it was going to be a rush to start moving. They couldn't camp here, not when the enemy was closing in. Not when he could almost feel the hot breath on his neck, the same thing he had felt so many damn times. He could already hear the bullets as they scraped against metal and wood, against the shrapnel left many times over. The faint pounding of feet behind him made his blood run cold, not knowing if it was the enemy or whatever remained of his troops...

Another bullet whizzed past his head and he could see the silver strands that it captured shoot past his head then delicately drift down to the ground as if nothing had happened. Damn it, they were getting close... And their aim was getting better. And as the men scrambled their way up the ridge that was their protection to the camp below, he could only watch as the bullets claimed one man... after another... after another. They fell and slumped to the ground, some lucky enough to be dead before they hit the ground.

They were the lucky ones...

Others staggered to remain on their feet as the crude bullets impaled into their legs, striking bone as they cried out in pain. But they also cried out names... Crying out the names of their fellow soldiers to help them, begging God to spare them... But as they started to slide down into the mud, the same phrase that had been running through his head for months, years, was pouring through his head once again.

There was no God here... There never was a God.

God ignored this hell hole, pushed it aside and turned his gaze away. He ignored the blood and the suffering, the cries of agony and terror that claimed each and every one of them. War was ugly... It wasn't the courageous, heroic acts that many men tried to convince the others as they go into war. No, it was just... fiery hell. The land reeked of blood and death, no honor. Not even in death was there honor... Not when the bodies were to be mangled by the opponent after they had fallen, some even still alive...

A loud cry beside him snapped him out of his thoughts from the death and destruction almost instantly and he felt a man stagger into his side. He felt the warmth of liquid start to stain itself into his uniform, going through the worn and destroyed padding underneath and the liquid starting to touch his skin. It pushed the man back on his feet, his arms instinctively reaching out and grasping a hold of his comrade. A grunt slipped from his lips as he was pulled to a halt, an action that could easily kill him...

But he couldn't help but look down at the man that had fallen against him, moaning in pain, still alive... He could see the path the bullet had taken, straight into his stomach. He saw the blood that was gushing out from the jagged hole, created by the crude bullets that only slaughtered and maimed, destroyed and slashed. He was already done for...

**"...H-help... me...!"** the choked beg came from the soldier's lips as he leaned heavily against the other soldier, his feeble arms trying desperately to wrap around his shoulders to pull himself up. His heart couldn't help but ache... But this scene had played out in front of him too many times to count. A man wounded, begging for help that he couldn't give. It would be a life already lost, and it would only put himself in danger...

Within moments, a rattling groan came from the dying man's lips as the able bodied man started to push himself forward, dragging the man along with him for a few short steps until the arms began to slack... Probably dead already. Forcing himself not to look back at the face of the man he carried, he grabbed the arms and pushed them off, letting the body slide from his back. It fell with a thud, not like he looked back to check... Don't waste time with the dead. That had been one of the few laws he had learned in the force...

Don't look back to the dead, or you'll become one of them. Every moment was another moment you should be glad to live, not spending it checking pulses.

Even as the blood was still wet on his side, he still pushed himself forward, taking off in a sprint to make up for the ground he had lost. He couldn't waste a moment longer... Not when their camp needed to get packed away and flee as quickly as they can to prevent more lives being lost. Pulling himself up on the ridge as fast as he could, following his own soldiers up as they flocked to camp, he set his eyes down to the camp enclosed inside. They were already pulling down tents and packing them as quickly as they could muster.

Things were going to be alright here... As long as they could get out of here in time. It was going to be a staggering loss for them but he refused to let all of his men die... Rushing down down the ridge in heartbeats to meet his fellow troops, he could already see the heads turning to him, calling out his name for his help.

**"General Kiryuu!"**


End file.
